Flight Without End

A soldier travels through Europe on a doomed mission to track down his fiancée in this masterful and vivid evocation of life between the wars __________ 'A concise, powerful writer who brilliantly evokes the social, political and intellectual turmoil of the era' Publisher's Weekly 'A master of German prose... Roth understood the subtler acts of violence that war enacts upon the mind' Spectator 'A very fine writer indeed' Guardian __________ Flight Without End tells the story of Franz Tunda, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, who is captured by the Russians in WWI and escapes to a remote Siberian farm. When peace is at last declared, Tunda pulls out a crumpled photo of his fiancée and sets off in search of home. But the old order has vanished, and Tunda finds himself instead swept along in the current of this new, terrifying world, surrendering to an impassioned love affair with a Russian revolutionary, then drifting phantom-like through Europe's cities. One of Joseph Roth's most personal novels, Flight Without End melds wry humour and experience of exile to reflect on the predicament of a man who can find no role for himself in a changed world.

Joseph Roth was born into a Jewish family in the small town of Brody in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied first in Lemberg and then in Vienna, and served in the Austrian army during World War I. He later worked as a journalist in Vienna and Berlin, travelling widely, staying in hotels and living out of suitcases, while also being a prolific writer of fiction. His most famous works include the novels Job (1930) and The Radetzky March (1932). Roth left Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933 and settled in Paris, where he died in 1939.